Community service day attracts
132 volunteers
By Seiji Ohashi
Staff
Writer
The Boiler Volunteer Network organized a large
group of student volunteers for community service projects Saturday.
Spring Community Day, in its second year as a program
held by the network, had roughly 132 volunteers show up to participate
in one of 11 service projects during the day, according to Meghna Patel,
graduate assistant for the network and a graduate student.
"We’re definitely growing," said
Patel about the number of volunteers the network has been able to pull
in.
Some of the projects for the volunteers included
landscaping at Columbia Park Zoo, painting the exterior of a building
at Wabash Valley Historic Trust and building juvenile animal cages for
rescued orphan animals at the Wildcat Wildlife Center.
According to Patel, because of the bigger turnout
this year, the event was changed to an all-day event where volunteers
were given breakfast and heard a speech by guest speaker Mike Piggott,
Purdue’s director of community relations. After finishing their
projects, volunteers were offered lunch as well.
"We try to incorporate service learning,"
said Patel as another objective to the event.
"(Service learning) is a trend that’s
catching on," said Patel.
The event was one of four main events the network
plans annually. Throughout the year, the network also provides other
projects.
The next and final event for this year will be
Project Move Out, which will start on May 2 and run through May 6.
"We go around the residence halls, fraternities
and sororities and pick up anything they were planning on getting rid
of," said David Slater, volunteer coordinator for the network and
a senior in the School of Technology.
According to Slater, these items will be collected
at the Armory and given away to people chosen by agencies for community
service. The Crisis Center will be the biggest agency the network will
be working with for this event, said Slater.
Those who wish to volunteer may contact the network
by telephone at 494-8864 or by e-mail at bvn@purdue.edu.
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